The invention relates to a method and to a corresponding communication system for handling alarms using a management network which has a plurality of management levels, the alarm data for active alarms being transmitted for alarm realignment between an agent on one management level and at least one manager on a next highest management level.
The principles of a management network, which are also called TMN (Telecommunications Management Network) principles, define a plurality of management levels for managing a communication systemxe2x80x94for example a mobile communication systemxe2x80x94, each level having a dual function. In the managing system, every level except for the bottom one has a manager function for the level situated below it. In the managed system, every level except for the top one has an agent function for the next highest level.
Fault management is an important part of TMN management. In principle, the agent plays the active role here by recognizing, in good time and accurately, faults on its own management level and transmitting them as alarms to the manager on the next highest level. The transmission of alarm data from the agent to the manager is not critical as long as the communication mechanism between these systems is not impaired. If the connection between the two management levels, that is to say between the agent and the manager, is no longer ensured for a particular time, the agent must temporarily store the alarms which have occurred during this interval to ensure that, after the possibility of communication has been restored, an overview of the currently active alarmsxe2x80x94e.g. in the form of a listxe2x80x94is provided to the manager as quickly as possible, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the manager can establish as complete an alarm history as possible both for the active and for the cleared alarms.
For this purpose, alarm realignment between the agent and the manager is carried out whenever a new connection is established after a connection has been terminated or after the agent or the manager has been initialized. All the alarm data for active alarms for which faults have not yet been cleared in the agentxe2x80x94which can be recognized from the fact that they are not identified as xe2x80x9ccleared alarmsxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94can therefore be provided to the next highest management level in full and as quickly as possible.
The earlier patent application P 19752614.4 specifies such a method and communication system for handling alarms describing a basic set of functions for the manager to request all the alarms from the agent. In this context, the agent sends the active alarms as a sequence of standardized M-EVENT-REPORTS which is embedded in an M-ACTION request initiated by the manager at the start and in an M-ACTION response initiated by the agent at the end. These are generic CMISE-standardized (Common Management Information Service Element) procedures defined on the basis of ITU-T X.710. ITU-T X.733 defines the content of a standardized alarm transmission (alarm report) implemented on the basis of the M-EVENT-REPORT services. All M-EVENT-REPORTS defined under this M-ACTION are explicitly correlated to the respective request using correlation information. This allows the manager to assign these M-EVENT-REPORTS to a particular request, and, furthermore, to distinguish them from other, xe2x80x9cregularxe2x80x9d M-EVENT-REPORTS.
The object of the invention is to specify such a method and communication system for handling alarms using a management network which has a plurality of management levels and optimizes alarm realignment between an agent and at least one manager.
The invention achieves this object, in terms of the method, with the features of patent claim 1, and, in terms of the communication system, with the features of patent claim 12. Developments of the invention can be found in the subclaims.
The invention is based on the alarm data for active alarms being transmitted for alarm realignment between an agent on one management level and at least one manager on a next highest management level. Furthermore, the manager sends one or more request notifications to the agent for transmission of the alarm data, and receives correlation information for assigning the respective request to the notifications with the alarm data which are subsequently sent by the agent. According to the invention, the manager controls the alarm realignment on the basis of at least one parameter sent to the agent.
The subject of the invention makes alarm realignment parameterizable for the manager, as regards the basic set of functions, i.e. it is no longer necessary for all active alarms to be imperatively sent by the agent, but only those defined in more detail by the transmitted parameters. This provides the manager with a selection function for a subset from all the alarms. The possibility, in particular, of controlling realignment using simple means and using standardized notifications increases the manager""s flexibility and significantly reduces the flow of notifications and information. For the first time, the parameterizable alignment functions according to the invention make it possible, by way of example, to prioritize the alarms and/or to have active control over the sequence of the requested alarms. Particularly the combination of the basic set of functionsxe2x80x94use of the correlation informationxe2x80x94with the parameterizable alignment functions produces a particularly effective method and communication system, resulting in optimum use of the transmission resources on the interface of the agent/manager relationship and the fastest possible provision by the agent of only that alarm data for active alarms for the next highest management level which is desired by the manager.
According to one development of the invention, the manager sends the parameter or parameters to the agent in each request notification. This means that the manager""s desired parameterization of alarm realignment takes place individually for every single request.
According to one alternative development of the invention, the manager sends the parameter or parameters to the agent in a setting notification which has precedence over the request notifications. This means that the manager""s desired parameterization of alarm realignment takes place, before the first request notification, jointly for a plurality of requests for which the manager""s one-off setting contained in the setting notification is valid.
According to further advantageous developments of the invention, parameterization can take place with one or more of the following parameter values set by the manager in each case. The parameter value requests, from the agent, alarms
which originate from selected agent units,
for which there is an assumed urgency,
which the agent uses during sending to prioritize the requested alarms according to their urgency, preferably using different urgency values,
which originate within a time interval defined by a start instant and an end instant,
which the agent uses during sending to prioritize the alarms according to the origination instant of the alarms.
In one refinement of the subject of the invention, the agent provides and sends the alarm data for the alarms having the earliest origination instants first, and provides and sends the alarm data for the alarms having the most recent origination instants last.
Thus, in a particularly beneficial refinement of the subject of the invention, the agent provides and sends the alarm data for alarms having critical urgency, for which the set of functions is assumed to be no longer present, first, and provides and sends the alarm data for alarms having noncritical urgency, for which the set of functions is assumed to be still present, last.
Using the above procedure, the manager can deliberately call up those alarms which are particularly critical in terms of functions, and hence are important to said manager, and can thus significantly reduce the load on the interface with the agent, as compared with the conventional method for automatically reporting all alarms, as a result of the flow of information limited only to particular alarms.